Now that they are not customisable going forwards, pixels are useless. Mid range phones that are overpriced with terrible support and janky features.
They were the only phones I would reasonably buy due to their ability to be customizable... Yeah this pretty much puts a nail in the coffin of using a Pixel in my book as well.
How are they less customizable now?
The are closing the source, so custom ROMs won't have the same code they did before.
GrapheneOS, for instance, a privacy focused rom that focused on pixels, won't be able to release to the same schedule as regular android. Only commercial developers will get the required code.
It's one more nail inthe coffin of androids open nature. I'm looking forward to limix phones. A return to control, customisation and less data harvesting.
It's truly awful what the smart phone ecosystem has become.
They are not closing the source. They are no longer developing in public, the source is still being released at this time. It is speculated they will stop releasing source at some point but there is no evidence this is happening as of yet.
I agree, but it's more complicated than that: They have removed the device tree for pixel devices from AOSP and using the device tree of the basic virtual phone in android studio instead. That brings the pixel 10 family (as well as future android pixel devices) to the same level as many other phonemaker's devices as far as making roms is concerned. So not all hardware will be documented, many drivers will need to be rebuilt. The pixel line up to the 9a is not affected because older device trees can be used (until Google wants to mod the way drivers load or add API's).
Ah. I read "closing the source" and thought AOSP as a whole, not the device tree for pixels. I did hear about that, and I'm honestly kind of hoping it opens up the space for PostMarketOS to support more Pixels if the drivers need to be written from scratch. I am not a big fan of the direction Google has been going either regarding AOSP& device trees so, another player in the mobile OS space that isnt DOA would be cool. Wishful thinking.
Let me know when they finally decide to make their devices everywhere and not in just 20 countries like it's a startup
Have they figured out how to do a foldable that's not fragile AF yet?
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